


Star Sword

by tlong0038



Category: Original - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tlong0038/pseuds/tlong0038
Summary: A member of the Most High Order of the Cosmic Swords travels the galaxy getting into and out of situations.





	1. Chapter 1

Hiro Thorvaldsen was awakened from a light sleep by the sound of wailing alarms. He vaulted down from the top bunk of his prison cell to land lightly in his bare feet on the chilly ferracrete floor. The tiny space was mostly dark. The only light coming into the small prison cell was through the small, square clearplast window in the cell door. Hiro moved over to the air return duct in a corner of the cramped space. He reached up and pulled off the vent cover. He thrust in an arm and his hand closed around a bundle wrapped in a blanket.

A figure stirred in the bottom bunk and pushed back the thin blanket. A huge hulking form rose from the bunk and stood up, almost filling the space next to the two bunk beds from floor to ceiling.

“What’s going?” asked the burly Yondak in a deep, guttural voice.

Hiro paused momentarily,”break out,” he said, “go back to sleep.” He extracted something long and thin from its hiding place in the rolled up blankets.

The Yondak paused, sniffing the air, as if tasting it for lies. “That’s impossible,” it said. “No one escapes from this place. Ever.”

“This place,” was the most heavily guarded prison in the Interstellar Dominion. Known unofficially as the Citadel, the prison asteroid did not exist on any official star charts, except as Echo-Six-Three-Eight. Unofficially, the Citadel was the Interstellar Dominion’sblack hole. The place where it kept its most dangerous political prisoners and others that it simply wanted to go away. The Citadel was located in the virtually empty interstellar gulf between the Orion and the Perseus Arms. The nearest civilized system was ten thousand light years away. Anyone who was sent to the Citadel never came back. Until today.

Hiro could distantly hear a steadily rising din through the heavily armoured cell door. The prisoners were getting restless. They had realized that something was up. He was suddenly lifted off his feet. “Hey, Bardu,” he said, “calm down, OK?”

The big Yondak held Hiro by the front of his prison jumpsuit. His feet dangled a good metre off the ground. “How are you planning on getting out of here?” he asked.

“What makes you think I’m the one planning a break out?” asked Hiro calmly.

“Because you’re a Star Knight,” replied Bardu.”You try to hide it, but its written all over you. I can practically smell it on you.”

Hiro put up his hands in surrender, “OK, you got me, I’m a Star Knight,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Take me with you,” replied Bardu.

Hiro was silent, thinking quickly. He had a plan for getting out of the Citadel and a partner _could_ make parts of his plan easier, but what to do with Bardu then? Drop him off in the nearest inhabited system?

“Well?” snarled Bardu.

“Alright,” said Hiro, “I’ll drop you off in the nearest system with a star port, OK?”

“Good enough.” The big Yondak dropped Hiro back onto his feet.

The Star Knight picked up the bundle he had extracted earlier from the vent. He reached into the centre of its folds and extracted a long thin metal rod. It was as long as his arm and sharpened to a crude point. One end was wrapped in tape, for extra grip. A crude crossguard had been welded to horizontally the rod just above it, providing at least a little protection for his wrist. Hiro unrolled the rest of the bundle, revealing shoulder pauldrons, gauntlets, helmet, breast plate and greaves.

Bardu stared. “So how long have you been planning this?” he asked.

Hiro paused in the act pulling his chest plate over his head. “Since five minute after I got here.” Hiro reckoned that that had been eight months ago, but he wasn’t sure. There were no clocks in the in the inmate detention pods. This was to make it impossible for the prison population to note the passage of time and the make it easier for the guards to control them. The Star Knights, more formally known as the Most High Order of the Cosmic Sword, had once been the right arm of the Interstellar Republic. For ten thousand years, the Star Knights had brought peace, truth and justice to the rest of the galaxy, but a thousand years of corruption had turned the Interstellar Republic into a hollow shell of itself. For the last hundred and fifty years, the Interstellar Republic had been ruled by a series of authoritarian strongmen, over the centuries, the ISR had been increasingly weakened until it had been a republic in little more that name only. A hundred years ago, the Star Knights had tried to stand against the ISD. The resulting civil war had lasted for nine years and had ended when the the Star Knights had been defeated by the ISR fleet at the Battle of Tau Ceti.

Since that time, the Star Knights had been forced underground. There were a few worlds, mostly in the galactic halo and worlds on the fringes of the Dominion, where its authority was weakest, who were still sympathetic to the Star Knights, gave them safe haven and allowed them to recruit and congregate openly, but in the heart of the Dominion, the exploits of the Star Knights, had been reduced to the stuff of holovid adventures and bedtime stories for children, when they were remembered at all.

Hiro finished strapping on his ad hoc armour. It was covered in glyphs and runes from a dozen different star systems. A Star Knight with a lifetime of training could attack and defend with a gesture, tracing glyphs and runes mid-air, conjuring all manner of weapons and defences, but there were very few Star Knights these days who could manage such feats. He picked up the long thin metal rod. He hesitated to call it a sword. It was a simple titanium rod with a beaten tip. In the prison lock-up, at the bottom of the the three kilometre tall tower that comprised the Citadel, was Hiro’s sword, along with his robes and armour. They had all been taken from him when he had been been brought to the Citadel eight months ago. He could have simply broken out of his cell, stolen a ship and escaped, but that would have necessitated leaving his sword behind, and no self respecting Star Knight would abandon his sword if he could help it. Every Star Knight going back to the founding of the order forged his own sword. Hiro had spent five years studying the craft of sword making, and another year actually forging his sword. It had been forged in the heart of a dying neutron star. If the star sword had been forged correctly, it was unbreakable. It would be able to cut through anything and would never need to be sharpened.

Hiro threaded his way past Bardu toward the door. He had something clutched in his hand. He stopped at the door, listening intently. The din of the inmates was getting steadily louder. Hiro smiled to himself. _Good_ , he thought, _this should provide enough cover to get me to the elevator._ Figures were moving back and forth on the other side of the cell door. Hiro heard the distant sounds of inmates taunting the guards, making suggestive comments about their manhoods and describing all the things they’d like to do to their mothers. The guards were spooked. He heard them muttering and cursing and the issuing terse orders. Hiro pried off the back of the panel next to the door and wired in the device that he held in his hand. He picked up his sword, took a deep breath and reached deep into the Aetherium. The glyphs and runes that he had scratched into his ad how armour glowed blue and the titanium rod in his hand glowed faintly.

Bardu stared in wonder. He had always felt that there was something different about Hiro, but never really believed the stories about the Star Knights. They had once been revered on Xuth and, had it had been considered a high honour to take up what his people had called the Cosmic Mantle, but the Star Knights had disappeared from his home world three thousand years ago, apparently never to return.

Hiro turned to face the Yondak. “Are you ready?”

Bardu nodded and clenched his big fists.

_OK_ , thought Hiro, _time to leave._ He flipped the little device’s single switch and the cell door slid open. Hiro charged out of the cell and into the open space beyond. He barrelled into one of the prison guards sending him tumbling over the edge of the catwalk to land with a dull, echoing thud on the feracrete fifty feet below. Hiro turned his head at the sound of running footsteps, his sightless eyes staring vacantly as he turned. At the same instant, he heard Bardu charging out of the cell behind him, bellowing wordlessly. Hiro scried a glyph in midair and made a fist. A glowing shield appeared in his left hand. He slashed at an on-rushing guard who was shouting at him.

“Hey! Get your ass back in your cell!” Hiro heard a whistling noise and sidestepped the guard just in time to avoid a blow from a shock wand, which sliced through the air where he had been standing only a second before. He turned on his heel as the guard ran past him and slashed at the guard with the tip of his sword. He felt it connect with the guard’s wrist, cutting through muscle, bone and nerve endings. Dark purple blood gushed out of the stump as then fell the floor. Hiro stooped and quickly scooped up the severed hand.

“Bardu!”

The big Yondak turned at the sound of his name and Hiro tossed him the severed hand. Bardu caught it deftly out of the air. “Open all the cells!” he shouted. “End of the cell block.”

“Got it.” Bardu turned and ran for the other end of the cell block. A guard swung at him with a shock wand. Bardu ducked the blow and buried a big fist in the man’s stomach. He doubled over with an audible _O00FFF!_ Bardu barrelled past him, leaving him sprawled face down on the floor, wheezing. A second guard came at him. Without pausing to think, Bardu picked up the guard by the front of his uniform and tossed him over the catwalk. He fell screaming to the floor below and landed with a crack amide a spreading pool of bluish-black blood. Bardu reached the end of the cell block and slapped the severed hand on top the biometric palm scanner. It glowed green as it read the severed hand’s finger prints. The computer screen next to the palm scanner came to life and flicked through the prison’s database, searching for a match. After a couple of seconds, it found the hand’s owner and a flat electronic voice said, “access granted.” A harsh buzzer sounded and the all cells doors in the cellblock. Inmates of every species and description burst out of their cells.

One of the guards was yelling into his comlink. “Prisoner riot in progress in pod Delta-Two-Nine-Echo! Send the-.” He didn’t finished his sentence. Bardu was on him almost immediately. He wrestled the ion pistol out of the guard’s belt holster and unloaded three shots into him. The guard jerked as the collinated energy lanced through his body. The guard collapsed amid the mixed smells of ozone and seared flesh. He stooped momentarily to snatch the dead guard’s key card. He straightened up and turn in time to see Hiro draw a shining white line in front of a handful of guards. As Bardu watched it multiplied itself then flew forward Hiro’s attackers, who all collapsed as if they had been shot with an entire quiver full of arrows.

He pushed his way through the throng of rioting inmates, until he reached Hiro. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “The riot squad is on its way.”


	2. Chapter 2

Hiro nodded in understanding. No sooner had Bardu spoken, than the elevator doors at the opposite end of the cell block snapped open and a dozen heavily armed prison guards poured out. The sound of heavy boots echoed off of the ferracrete walls from overhead. Hiro instinctively cocked his head, frowning slightly. He had expected anticipated this response, but it had occurred a full minute faster than he had anticipated. He half turned to Bardu. “Get ready to move when I give the signal.” The Yondak nodded.   
A voice spoke over the PA system. “Prisoner Baker-Two-Eight-Five, Prisoner Foxtrot-Three-Nine-Three, return to your cells immediately.”  
“Make me,” said Hiro. He heard the high pitched whine of a particle rifle, then heard the sharp crack of splintering ferracrete and felt a sensation like hot needles as his face peppered with shards of hot ferracrete.  
“Return to your cells. That is your only warning.”  
Hiro tensed. His hand twitched. He felt Bardu do the same. “Bardu,” he said.  
“Yeah,” said Bardu tersely.  
“Jump.”  
Without thinking, Bardu flung himself over the edge of the catwalk and into the empty space in the middle of the cellblock. At the same moment, Hiro gestured again, scrying something in the air. Something that Bardu thought to be a rope appeared in his hand. It shot across the cellblock and embedded itself in the ferracrete wall on the other side. Hiro wrapped the end of the rope around his hand and jumped. Bardu was suddenly no longer falling. He felt an arm wrap itself around his waist and he realized that Hiro had grabbed him in mid-air. He shifted his centre of gravity and brought his feet up just in time to slam his heels one of the guards, catching him full in the face. Blood and teeth flew everywhere as the man went down. Bardu noticed that the man’s nose was crooked and he guessed that it was broken. The guard didn’t move. Bardu got to his feet, retrieving the guard’s fallen particle rifle. He straightened up, shouldered the weapon, took aim and let off a quick burst of weapons fire. With a high pitched whine, Bardu stitched a line of shots across the guards standing on the opposite side of the cellblock where he had been standing. They went down like so many sacks of bricks under the onslaught of a series of blue hyphens of energy.  
Hiro turn to face the prison guards. Everything suddenly seemed to be happening in slow motion. His hand tightened on the grip of the titanium rod that doubled for a sword. He heard the metallic clatter of particle rifles being raised to firing position. Before they could pull trigger, Hiro sprang at them. He felt the air crackle around him and the hair on the back of his neck stood up as the blue beams of energy lanced past him, converging on where he had been standing a few seconds before. He heard the guards shouting and swearing, then heard the sound of a particle rifle again and realized that it was Bardu. Hiro slashed at the nearest guard and heard a wet gushing sound followed by a strangled cry. He had opened the guard’s throat and the man and bled.  
The glowing shield that had been in Hiro’s left had disappeared and the Star Knight gestured again. This time a glowing ball of energy appeared in his palm. He wound up a threw like a ball. It landed in the middle of the guards and for a second, Bardu thought that whatever Hiro had been trying to do had failed, but he heard Hiro say to him, “cover your eyes.”  
Bardu turned and threw his hands up in front of his eyes just in time. Through the gaps in his fingers of blinding white light stabbed at his retinas and he painfully screwed his eyelids shut. He heard a loud cry and felt a rushing wind buffeting his body, then everything was still. He lowered his hands and pried open his eyelids. Where the guards had been, a dozen shadows had been seared into the ferracrete. Bardu opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, Hiro grabbed the arm of his prison jumpsuit.  
“Come on,” he said. “We need to keep moving if we want to get out of here.”  
With Bardu in tow, the blind Star Knight ran down the cell block toward the detention pod’s single elevator. The doors snapped open as soon as he reached and a dozen guards in full riot gear and ceramo-carbon body armour poured out. Hiro launched himself at them, landing blows everywhere he could reach. Bardu brought up his particle rifle and began firing. The weapon kicked against his shoulder as he pulled the trigger and he watched as one of the guards collapsed in a heap, a smoking hole in his chest where his heart used to be.  
Bardu raised his weapon again, but held his fire. Hiro was in the thickest press of the guards as they poured out of the elevator. They slashed at him with their shock wands. A few landed glancing blows, but most struck empty air. Hiro whirled, planting his foot the midriff of the nearest guard. The man doubled over wheezing and Hiro brought his knee up into the man’s face. His head snapped back with crack that was audible, even over the wailing alarms and the sounds of a full scale prison riot.  
Bardu waded into the mess after after Hiro. One of the guards tried to grab him. The big Yondak turned and balled his right hand into a fist and hit his assailant with a right hook. He went crosseyed and fell to the floor, unconscious. Light flew from Hiro’s fingers again and several of the remaining guards were suddenly surrounded by tendrils of crackling blue energy. They twitched and writhed and fell to the ferracrete floor and lay still. Hiro stooped and retrieved a key card from the utility belt of one of the fallen guards. He stood up and gestured to Bardu. “Come on,” he said.   
Hiro and Bardu stepped over the bodies of the fallen prison guards, stopping in front of the single elevator car which was the only way in or out of the cellblock. Hiro inserted the access card he had taken from one of the guards into the slot next to the elevator door. It snapped open and Hiro stepped into the elevator. Bardu followed him. The elevator doors snapped closed. Hiro pushed a button and Bardu felt the bottom drop out of his second stomach. Hiro frowned to himself.  
Bardu noticed the look on his companion’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.  
The Star Knight hesitated momentarily before answering. “That was a little too easy,” replied Hiro. “I had anticipated that they would have locked down the elevators by know.”  
“So what are you saying?” asked Bardu. “This is a trap?”  
By way of an answer, Hiro nodded upward at the the circular hatch hatch in the roof of the elevator car. “Give me an boost,” he said. Bardu knelt and Hiro climbed up on his shoulders. He took old of the hatch’s release handle and pulled. The sound of whistling wind filled the interior of the elevator. Hiro had just stuck his head into the elevator’s slipstream when he suddenly lurched and was thrown to the floor. He landed in a heap onto of Bardu.  
Hiro and Bardu untangled themselves from each other and got to their feet. They could hear the wind whistling loudly as the air rushed past the open hatch in the top of the elevator. Well, that didn’t take as long as I thought it would, thought Hiro. He eyed the open hatch again, trying to assess how fast they were falling. Pretty fast, he thought, judging by the rate at which the emergency lights were flicking past. He felt his ears pop. We must pretty high too.He was suddenly struck by the realization that the Dominion thought he was important. The most important and high profile prisoners were kept at the top of the Citadel. It occurred to Hiro, that meant that the Dominion thought he was important. I suppose I should be flattered by that, he thought. He cast an eye at the display panel next to elevator’s doors. The numbers were flicking downward with increasing rapidity.  
Bardu looked at him. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.  
Hiro nodded upward toward the open hatch. “Get me up there again.”   
The big Yondak crouched under the open hatch again and Hiro climbed up on his shoulders. He stuck his head through the open hatch and levered himself up on to the roof of the falling elevator. He felt the wind tugging at his hair and clothes. He reached down, took hold of Bardu’s hand and pulled him through the hatch on to the roof of the falling elevator. Hiro stood up, bracing himself against the buffeting of the elevator’s slipstream. The wind echoed loudly in the elevator shaft, making conversation almost impossible.   
Hiro mouthed something at Bardu. “GET READY!”  
Get ready, thought Bardu, for what? No sooner had he had this thought than Hiro gestured and a bright silver ribbon shot out of his hand. It moved also too fast for Bardu’s eye to see, but he thought he saw something like a barbed hook on the end. It embedded itself in the curved ferreacrete wall of the elevator shaft.   
Hiro grabbed the end of the ribbon that he had conjured out of thin air and felt his stomach drop as the elevator fell out from under his feet. He looked down and saw Bardu looking up at him. He gestured with his free hand and another silver ribbon appeared in his hand. Bardu grabbed it and dropped about a foot before coming to a stop. He looked down between his dangling feet as the speeding elevator dropped rapidly out of sight.   
Quiet descended in the elevator shaft as Hiro and Bardu slipped out of the falling elevator’s slipstream. Bardu looked up at the Star Knight. “OK, so now what?” he asked.  
Hiro looked around, assessing their situation. This was wasn’t the worst situation he had been in, there had been. There had been the incident with the slave dealers in the TRAPPIST system and the Dominion bounty hunters in the UY Scuti system before that. There was a maintenance ladder on the opposite side of the elevator shaft, but there was no way to climb around and get to it. The lights illuminating the elevator shaft were flush with the curved ferracrete wall of the elevator shaft. “I’ve got an idea,” said Hiro. He nodded at the access ladder. “I’m going to try to swing you over there and we can start climbing down.”  
Bardu looked uncertain. “Are you sure?” he asked. “That looks pretty far. And what about you?”  
“I can make that,” he said. “That’s not a problem, but I need a free hand to do it.”  
Bardu looked uncertain. He had to resist the urge to look down the elevator shaft. It’s a long fall if you miss, he thought to himself. Then don’t miss, he thought. He looked back up at Hiro. “OK,” he said, ‘“lets give it a try.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hiro began to swing his arm slowly back and forth. He felt Bardu swinging his legs back and forth, trying to build up his momentum and increase the arc of his swing. Bardu forced his body to relax. He inhaled several times, filling all four of his lungs. He let himself swing, extending the apogee of his arc a little further each time. Bardu swung out over the middle of the elevator shaft. He was aware of the three kilometres drop to the bottom of the shaft. He pushed the thought out of his mind. He was totally focused on reaching the ladder on the other side. He stretched out his hand, but it was too far. He would have to jump. Bardu let himself swing all the way back until he felt his feet make contact with the curved ferracrete wall. He pushed off as hard as he could.  
Once.  
Twice.  
And again.  
On the fourth swing he let is momentum carry himself all the way out the middle of the elevator shaft. When Bardu thought that he was at absolutely outer most apogee of his arc, he let go of the line that Hiro had conjured. Bardu felt his momentum propelling him through the air. He saw the far side of the elevator shaft getting closer. The ladder was almost with reach. He stretched out his hand, but he was falling. Bardu realized that he was still too far away. He felt his stomachs lurch. He was falling. Bardu’s hands flailed uselessly against the air, then he saw a bright light streak across his light of sight, then a shadow passed over him, as Hiro conjured another line out nowhere and swung himself across the elevator shaft. He grabbed hold of the ladder with his free hand. He half turned and gestured yet again, shooting line out into the middle of the shaft. Bardu grabbed it at once. He stopped falling and swung sideways. He hit the side of the elevator shaft with heavy thud, rebounded off of the curved ferracrete wall and grabbed the nearest rung of the ladder. He let go of the line, which disappeared.   
“So do you know where we have to go to get out of here?” asked Bardu.  
Hiro nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “The hangars are about half way down the tower. We should be able to steal a ship from there.” Breaking into the hangars would be challenging. The Citadel had only one hangar bay, located, as Hiro had just explained, which was located in the middle of the tower. It was the only entrance into the prison. The Citadel had no emergency air locks or escape systems. In the unlikely event that Citadel was comprised, the Dominion considered the Warden and guards to be expendable. There was a catch, however, the Citadel’s hangar bay was well guarded. In addition to the prison guards, the hangar level was protected by force fields and security drone. Any ship attempting to approach the hangar, or take off with authorization would be automatically fire on without warning.  
Hiro started to climb downward. Bardu followed suit. “There’s something else we have to do first,” he said.  
“Wait, what something else?” asked Bardu in confusion. “What else could we have to do besides get out of here?”   
“I need to get Star’s Heart,” replied Hiro.  
Bardu looked confused, “Star’s Heart?” he repeated, “just what in the nine Deneebian hells is Star’s Heart?”  
“My sword,” replied Hiro.  
Bardu gaped at Hiro, “your sword,” he said in amazement, “do you even know where they keep that stuff?!”  
Hiro shrugged. “Yeah, I have a rough idea,” he said. “They usually keep prisoner effects at the base of the tower, if we’re lucky.”  
Maybe I should have stayed in my cell, thought the Yondak. “And if we’re not lucky?” he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.  
“If they know what I am,” replied Hiro, “It’ll be in a secure vault in one of the sub levels.”  
“And do you know what the security is like down there?” asked Bardu.  
Again, Hiro nodded, “I’ve seen the specs,” he said. The Citadel’s sub levels contained prisoners whose existence had been totally disavowed by the Interstellar Dominion, beings whose activities and beliefs were considered to be so dangerous that simply imprisoning them wasn’t enough. They had to totally disappear. Forever. In addition, the Citadel was also used as a highly secure storage facility for the Dominion’s most sensitive plans, as well as rare and dangerous artifacts from all over the galaxy. Hiro considered it highly likely that Star’s Heart was locked away somewhere in one of the Citadel’s sub-levels. If it was, he was forced to consider the possibility that he might never get it back. He had no idea what he would do then.   
Breaking out of their detention pod had been challenging, but not overly taxing. Most of the Citadel’s prison guards were drawn from the Dominion Army. Many of the guards were combat veterans of the Dominion’s many wars, but prison duty made them soft. The guards protecting the sub-levels were completely different. The run of the mill prison guards could bribed and cajoled to occasionally look the other way. The guards protecting sub-level were totally committed to the ideals of the Interstellar Dominion. They were given their own barracks, the latest weapons and the best training. The sub-levels could only accessed from one location. On top of that, the sub-levels did not appear on the Citadel’s official blueprints, which meant that there was no way to know where Star’s Heart was actually located. More than once, Hiro had seriously considered escaping without his sword, but every time he had, the Third Canon of the Most High Order of the Cosmic Sword had come into his mind. “A Star Knight’s sword shall be his right arm and his life. He shall travel nowhere without it and shall not be suffered to part with it.” That had always ended any debate.  
“So what’s your next step?” asked Bardu.  
“We need to get out of this elevator shaft before anyone gets any cute ideas,” replied Hiro. He had little doubt that the riot he had arranged as cover for their escape had almost certainly been quelled by now. He glanced at the bar code tattooed on the back of his hand. The guards would have contained all the inmates and performed a head count. When they came up two short, they would have immediately recognized that Hiro and Bardu were missing and begun a search. The Citadel was three kilometres tall, but had few places to places to hide. Each detention pod was largely isolated from the others in order to minimize the possibility of a mass uprising. The only method of directly communicating between pods was by way of the elevator shafts which ran through the centre of the structure from top to bottom. The only other way was through the the Citadel’s life support system. That was how Hiro planned to break in to the Citadel’s sub-levels and search for his sword. As far as he had been able to determine, the ventilation system was the single crack in the sub-levels’ armour.  
Hiro shut his eyes, falling into his memory. Strictly speaking, he didn’t actually need to shut his eyes, as he was blind, but he did it anyway. It was a purely autonomic reflex. He took a deep breath, letting the Aetherium wash over him. The sounds and smells of the Citadel blossomed in his mind. In the eight months of his imprisonments, he had taken careful note of the smallest details. His training as a Star Knight had taught him to take note of the minutia of the Citadel’s daily routines, such as when the guards’ shift changed, which ones could be bribed and so on. He had managed to convince one of the guards to let him have access to a data terminal for half an hour. In that time, he had attempted to study as much of the Citadel’s schematics as he could. He reconstructed the digital model of the Citadel’s life support systems in his mind. Wiring, air conditioning ducts and plumbing traced a tangled web across his synapses. He opened his sightless eyes again and looked down at Bardu. “I know a way out,” he said.  
Bardu looked up him.”Yeah,” he said, “where?”   
“There’s a maintenance hatch about ten levels down from here,” he said. “We can get into the ventilation system from there.”  
Bardu nodded. “Let’s get going then.”  
It took Hiro and Bardu fifteen minutes to climb down the ten levels from where they had escaped from the falling elevator. When they arrived, they found themselves staring across the shaft at a square hatch set into the curved ferracrete wall.   
Bardu sighed, remember trying leap across the shaft earlier. “We’re going to do the Deenebian trapeze act again, aren’t we?” he asked.   
Hiro frowned, staring across the void at the hatch on the other side. He could have sworn that the hatch was on this side of the elevator shaft. He wondered how they were going to get over there. He had opened his mount and had been about to say, “sorry, we might have to,” but the words died before he could utter them. Next to hatch on the other side of the elevator shaft, was a keypad. If I can slice the keypad, we should be able to open that maintenance hatch, he thought. He gestured and as before, a thin, shining filament appeared in his hand. It shot across from one side of the elevator shaft to the other and buried itself in the ferracrete wall. Hiro took the other end and it to the rung of the ladder on they were hanging.   
Hiro turned to Bardu and said, “stay here. I’m going to try to slice that key pad.” He took hold of the thin filament and one at time, slowly hooked his legs, one after the other, over the line he had conjured. It took him several minutes to crawl, hanging upside down across the bottomless chasm of the elevator shaft until he reached the keypad and the hatch on the other side. He examined the keypad running his fingers around the edges of the metal face plate. He dug his fingernails under the gap between the faceplate and the wall.   
After a minute or two, Hiro was able to separate the keypad from the wall. The space behind it was filled with a tangle wires and computer chips. He reached into the open space and pulled out an assemblage of computer circuits. He let go of them and they fell into the abyss, spinning in the stray air currents as they disappeared from view. He paused for a moment, eyeing the heavy hatch, waiting for it to move. Nothing happened. Hiro frowned to himself and reached into the cavity again, pulling out another circuit board and casting it into the void. He eyed the hatch again, and again nothing happened. Hiro took the bundle of wires and pulled several of them apart. Hiro stuck one of them between his teeth and had to resist the urge to spit it out. It was still live. He bit down on it and carefully stripped off the outer casing. He cast it aside and repeated the steps for another wire. And then another. And another. And another. Finally, after crossing six wires and removing two more circuit assemblies, the hatch’s locking mechanism unlocked with a dull clunk and the hatch swung open.


	4. Chapter 4

As the maintenance hatch swung slowly open, a foul smell wafted out. The miasma spilled out of the open hatch like a physical thing and filled the elevator shaft with a noxious smell. The sour taste of bile filled the back of Hiro throat and he had to visibly fight the urge to throw up.   
Hiro and Bardu traded a look across the elevator shaft. “Shit,” said Bardu, “what’s in there?”  
“Shit, I think,” replied Hiro. That’s exactly what it was. The maintenance hatch that Hiro had opened led into the Citadel’s waste processing system, which collected and processed the various excretions and biological waste products produced by the Citadel’s inmates and guards.   
“Did you know what that was?” asked Bardu slightly suspiciously.  
Hiro nodded.  
“And you didn’t think to say anything because….” asked Bardu in annoyance.  
From his inverted position, Hiro shrugged. “You want to get out of here don’t you?”  
The waste processing system was the only subsystem that the Citadel’s central computer didn’t monitor. Whoever had designed the Citadel had evidently figured that the likelihood that anyone incarcerated in the Citadel wouldn’t be desperate enough to try to escape that way. They evidently hadn’t counted on Hiro. He thrust his fingers inside the small gap between the hatch and the combing that ran around it and eased it open. The excremental smell coming from inside intensified.  
Bardu had to resist the urge to press a big hand to his slitted nostrils. He would need both of them to crawl across the chasm of the elevator shaft and into the maintenance hatch. He took hold of the thin line that Hiro had conjured first with one hand and then the other. When he was certain he had a secure grip, he hooked one leg and then the other around the line and inched his way across the bottomless chasm. The smell wafting out of the open hatch seemed to intensify even more the closer he got to it, which seemed like it should be physically impossible. He had to physically force himself to keep going. He eventually reached the lip of the open hatch. He stuck his hand inside and pulled himself through the open hatch. Bardu stood up. The top of his head brushed the top of the circular tunnel. He put a big hand over his slitted nostrils. He shot a look at the Star Knight. Hiro was was standing ankle deep in a slowly flowing river a of dark coloured sludge.   
He set off walking, leaving a trail of misshaped footprints in the river of shit that covered the floor the tunnel. He turned and looked back at Bardu, who looked as if he’d rather do almost anything else. “Come on,” Hiro called over his shoulder. Bardu pulled the maintenance hatch shut behind him. The tunnel was dimly lit. The smell hung oppressively in the air. In the confined space, Bardu felt as though someone was pressing a wet cloth over his mouth, making it difficult to breath. He tried to take a shallow breath and felt himself becoming light headed. For a second, he wondered if he would be able to do this, then pushed the thought away. No, thought Bardu, no, I’m going to keel over and drown in a river of shit.

Bardu wasn’t sure how long they walked for, trudging through the dark brown, foul smelling river. They occasionally passed other hatches, but they had no way to open them. Bardu thought that they were travelling in a downward direction, the floor of the tunnel seemed to be sloping downward, but he couldn’t be sure. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. He had stopped trying to cover his mouth and nose. It did nothing to keep out the oppressive smell, which was like a physical thing in the back of Bardu’s throat.  
Hiro nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s not too much farther.” 

“Not too much farther,” by Bardu’s reckoning seemed to take several more hours, but with no way to determine the passage of time, he couldn’t be sure. They eventually came to a stop in front of a square metal grate set in the tunnel wall about half way up from the floor. It was corroded and covered in rust.  
“So what’s back there?” asked Bardu.  
“It’s the Citadel’s ventilation system,” replied Hiro. Unlike the Citadel’s sewage processing system, was closely monitored by the Citadel’s central computer. In addition to being wired with holocams, many of the vent grills were protected by laser grids. The air return ducts were wired with pressure sensors and silent alarms, as well as autonomous drones, which were armed with nanolasers, motion detectors and thermal sensors. Hiro stuck his fingers through the slats in the rusted vent grill. He muttered something under his breath that Bardu didn’t quite catch. For brief second, Hiro’s hands glowed, and he pulled, but instead of the grate coming loose in his hands, it crumbled into dust.   
Hiro paused momentarily, as if waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he slowly stuck his head through the opening and climbed into the space beyond. He paused again, once again as if waiting for something to happen. After a second or two, he turned to Bardu. “C’mon,” he said, “but watch where you step. There could be hidden traps.”  
Bardu carefully squeezed his big frame through the opening in the tunnel wall and stepped into the tunnel next to Hiro. They both took a deep breath. The air in the ventilation duct was crisp and clean. It didn’t have the foul odour of the sewage tunnel. Hiro and Bardu started walking. Their footsteps echoed slightly in the close confines of the ventilation duct. The only light coming in was the dim light from the sewage tunnel, which was fading rapidly as they advanced deeper into the ventilation duct. Bardu felt all four of his pupils dilate tp their maximum extent. He peered into the pitch darkness, but couldn’t see anything. “Can’t you do something about this?” he asked Hiro. “I can barely see.”  
“Huh?” said Hiro in slight surprise. Then it hit him. Hiro had been blind since childhood. See8mg with his ears had long ago become second nature. Sometimes he had to remind himself that most people never had to learn how learn how to do that. “Oh, sorry,” he said. He held up his hand and muttered something thar Bardu didn’t quite catch and a flickering orb blossomed into existence. It cast a dim, pale blue light that lit up their immediate surroundings. The rest of the tunnel was in darkness. Bardu wasn’t sure how long they walked for, but eventually they came to a junction where several other ducts branched off in other direction. Without slowing his pace, Hiro took the fork to the farthest right.   
The tunnel curved away into the darkness as they left the junction behind. Bardu thought that the tunnel seemed to be sloping slightly downward, but it was hard to tell for sure. The only sound was the echo of their footsteps. Their senses were on alert for the slightest movement and on a couple of occasions, Hiro doused the light he had conjured at the sound of skittering footsteps. He fully opened himself to the Aetherium, searching for ripples of movement, but he sensed nothing. At one point, Bardu thought that he felt something brush against his leg, but when he looked down, there had been nothing there and he figured that he must have been his imagination play tricks on him in the dark.  
They eventually stopped at a vertical shaft. The dim light from Hiro’s flickering blue orb was swallowed by what seemed to Bardu to be bottomless darkness. There were no obvious handholds or way of climbing down to the bottom.  
Hiro appeared to be frowning. “What’s wrong?” asked Bardu.   
“This shouldn’t be here,” replied Hiro.   
“So what does that mean?” asked Bardu. “Are we lost?”  
Hiro shook his head. “Not exactly,” he replied. He pointed at the bottomless chasm in front of them. “That’s not supposed to be here.” He searched his memory trying to recall from the scanty computer access he had had, if there was supposed to be a vertical shaft in this location. He was reasonably certain that there wasn’t. “Come on,” he said. He turned around and started walking, he turned and called over his shoulder. “We need to go back the way we came.”  
Bardu wasn’t sure how long they walked for, but it felt as it turned took far longer to retrace their steps than it had to get here in the first place, even thought they hadn’t taken any additional turns or detours. Eventually, they returned to junction they arrived at earlier. Hiro walked into the middle of the space and sat down on the bare ferracrete floor.  
Bardu looked at him sceptically. “What are you doing?” he asked.  
Hiro turned his sightless eyes to look at the big Yondak. In the flickering light of the pale blue orb, they seemed glow and he found it a little unsettling. “Flow walking,” he said. “This might take awhile.”  
Bardu opened his mouth to say, “but how long is awhile?” The words died in his throat before he could actually speak them. Hiro had settled himself onto the bare ferracrete floor of the tunnel. He took slow even breaths. He let the Aetherium flow through him, opening his senses. He could feel the currents of the Aetherium edging around him in the tunnel, like whirlpools flowing around a rock in a river. He let his mind drift with the flow Aetherium, searching for the the current that would take them down the Citadel’s hanger level. The Aetherium opened the whole of the Citadel to him. He could see everything. He saw the Citadel’s warden pacing back and forth in his private apartment. He saw the prison guards in their barracks. He found himself drifting back down the way they had initially come. He frowned in concentration. He was suddenly standing at the edge of the bottomless chasm again. The current was drawing him over the edge. He felt a sudden sense of foreboding. For some reason that Hiro couldn’t explain, he didn’t want to go. Hiro was suddenly falling. He could feel the wind whistling through his hair. Hiro was suddenly transfixed by a multitude of vivid electric blue eyes.   
He heard something move and before Hiro could react, he was ensnared by dozens of tentacles. He felt hooks digging into his flesh. A cavernous maw opened beneath him. Hundreds of sharp, pointed teeth glinted In the dim light cast by the seemingly endless multitude of eyes. Hiro struggled against the ensnaring tentacles, but they only tightened their grip. He was being lowered into the cavernous jaws. Hiro’s eyes snapped open. His heart was pounding rapidly and he jumped to his feet.   
Bardu started at the sudden moment and got to his feet as well. “What happened?” he asked. “Do you have a way out of here?”  
Hiro didn’t answer. He was standing very still, listening hard. Bardu was confused and started to say, “what’s going?” but Hiro held a finger to his lips.  
“Shhhhhhhh!” He spoke very, very quietly. Bardu had to strain hard to hear the Star Knight speak. Hiro pointed down the tunnel they had come from. “Something’s down there,” he whispered. No sooner had Hiro spoken, than a sound came echoing down the tunnel. It was a deep guttural snarl. A faint electric blue glow lit the tunnel walls. Hiro grabbed the big Yondak by the elbow and shouted “RUN!”


	5. Chapter 5

Bardu looked startled and jumped to his feet at Hiro’s sudden movement. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he guessed that it was at least an hour. The sound of Hiro’s running foots echoed loudly off the tunnel walls. Bardu chased after Hiro, as he pelted across the chamber. He arrowed directly toward the tunnel on the farthest left.  
“Hey,” Bardu called after him, “I don’t understand. What are we running from?”  
Hiro skidded to a sudden stop. He turned and clapped a hand over Bardu’s mouth. “There’s something down that tunnel,” he said. He spoke so quietly that Bardu could barely hear him.  
“What?” he asked. “How do you know?”  
“I saw it,” he replied. Even as he spoke, he could feel the thing’s malevolent prescience rippling the Aetherium. It was making his skin crawl. “I have no idea what it is, but we need to get out of here.” He started walking quickly again. It was almost a jog.  
Bardu nodded. “OK,” he said. “Let’s get out of here,” and he started to follow Hiro down the tunnel.   
They had gone perhaps twenty feet when something burst sideways through through the ferracrete wall directly in front of them. The tunnel walls echoed with the sound of cracking ferracrete and the tunnel was suddenly filled with a thick cloud of dust. Hiro could see shapes moving in the billowing dust as a thick mass of writhing tentacles thrust itself out of the hole. They were covered with razor sharp hooks. Some of them had mouths on the ends. They were constantly opening and closing. Others had what appeared to be grasping hands or other appendages that Hiro and Bardu couldn’t identify. The tunnel was dimly lit by the glow of dozens of vivid electric blue eyes.  
Bardu turned to Hiro. “What the hell is that thing?!” he asked, “and how did you know it was here?”  
Hiro shook his head. “I have no idea,” he replies. “The Aetherium showed it to me.”  
“What? Why?” The think was pulled a long body of the hole it had made.  
Hiro shook his head again. “No idea,” he said, “but I think we pissed it off.”  
“So what do we do?” asked Bardu.  
Hiro looked rapidly at the three tunnels, formulating a plan of action. The tunnel that they had initially gone down was evidently its layer, so that one was out. The thing, what ever it was, somehow tunnelled its way from its nest across the middle tunnel and was now blocking the tunnel on the other side. Hiro quickly searched his memory, trying to remember if they had passed any other side side tunnels or passages. He drew a blank.  
“Looks like we’re taking door number two,” he said, nodding at the tunnel directly in front of them.  
“Do we know what’s down there?”ask Bardu.  
Hiro shook his head. “No idea,” he replied. “Hopefully not another one of those things.”  
Bardu sighed. Might as well get this over with, he thought. He took off running, his footsteps echoing loudly on the ferracrete walls. He could hear Hiro right behind him, panting loudly. No sooner had they started running that the creature in front of them withdrew itself from the most distant tunnel, suddenly with drew itself from the tunnel it had occupied. It turned to face them. As it did, Bardu was suddenly transfixed by a multitude of vivid electric blue eyes. His pace slowed and Hiro ran into him, knocking them both over. Hiro got to his feet and took a couple of steps, then stopped. He turned back. Bardu was lying face down on the ferracrete. Hiro grabbed him by the back of his jumpsuit, picked him up and flung him over his shoulder. He staggered under Bardu’s unconscious weight. The Yondak was heavy. Hiro estimated that he must weigh at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and most of it was muscle. He started moving forward. The creature lashed out at him with a long tentacle, as thick as him arm. It moved with a whip like motion almost too fast for even Hiro to see. His only warning was a subtle ripple in the current of the Aetherium. Hiro dove and almost lost his grip on Bardu. He struck the tunnel wall and was momentarily winded, but he couldn’t afford to stop moving. He got up and kept going. As he did, he noticed something strange. He felt as though he was being drained. Hiro’s footsteps were becoming steadily slower and Bardu’s limp form was getting heavier and heavier. There was a buzzing in his ears. It seemed to be getting louder and louder. It was becoming impossible to hear himself think. Another long tentacle whipped out at him. Hiro felt it coming, but reacted a little too slowly. As if in slow motion, Hiro felt something like a thick fleshy rope winding itself around his ankles, then the tunnel spun crazily as it pulled his feet out from under him. The floor of the tunnel seemed to rush up and strike him on the side of the head and he knew no more.

When Hiro awoke, he was totally disoriented at first. He was hanging upside down and bound from head to foot. He could feel the blood rushing to his head. Stick secretions covered his face, making it difficult to breath. He thrashed back and forth trying to free himself. All he did set himself swinging. He collided with something and heard a muffled cry. Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. Bardu was still alive. Hiro continued to work his body back and forth. Eventually he was able work his left hand loose. He had to stop several times because he thought he heard something moving. Each time, the sound of something being dragged across rough, unfinished ferracrete was accompanied by a buzzing in his ears and a sensation of being drained, which left him feeling lethargic and tired.  
Hiro gestured with his left hand and felt something appear there. No sooner had it appeared in his palm, than he heard the sound of tentacles being dragged over rough ferracrete and the buzzing in his ears and the sensation of being drained returned. The Aetheric knife that he had conjured in his flickered once or twice, then disappeared. He suddenly sensed something touching his forehead. It was knobbly and fleshy and covered in a thick layer of sticky mucus. Hiro suddenly had a strong desire to sleep, but he knew that he couldn’t. He suddenly knew what the creature was. It was an Aetheric pitcher plant. Hiro had heard stories, really little more that rumours of the Aetheric pitcher plant. Most people who had the misfortune to encounter one usually didn’t survive the experience. Hiro drowsily wracked his brain for any scraps of information he might have remembered about Aetheric pitcher plants. This one must be young, he thought. Aetheric pitcher plants were mobile as juveniles, but as they got older, they gradually became more sedentary.   
Hiro needed to stay awake. If he feel asleep, it would eventually drain all of his Aetheric energy. Even if it didn’t kill him, which it likely would, it leave him little better than a vegetable. We have to get out of here, thought Hiro. He felt the plant continuing drain him of his energy. He tried to reach out with his senses, listing for where sounds echoed off of ferracrete or bodies. He guessed that he was suspended a good fifty above the floor, but he couldn’t be certain. The tentacle with the pod on the end was still touching his forehead, and it was dulling his senses. It felt as if there was a thick scarf wrapped around his head. It made everything seem blurry. Hiro wasn’t sure how long the pitcher plant fed on him for, but it felt like hours.  
He suddenly aware that fleshy feeding pod was no longer touching his forehead. As soon as it left him, everything seemed to snap back into focus. Hiro gestured with his left hand again and he felt the knife appear. It was harder this time. He reached out with his senses, listening for anything approaching. He couldn’t hear anything and didn’t sense disruptions in the currents of the Aetherium either, but it was hard to tell for certain. The pitcher plant loomed like a livid bruise in the currents of the Aetherium, like a black hole, pulling everything into a bottoms black abyss. He began to slowly cut at his bonds. Hiro had to stop several times. He thought he heard echoes of the pitcher plant moving toward him, but there was nothing. Hiro kept cutting away at his bonds. It was slow work. The knife he had conjured out of the Aetherium was dull because he has been fed on and the stuff he had been wrapped in was fibrous and tough. Eventually he felt the strands that had imprisoned him begin to give way. He was able to move his arm a little and he began pulling and his bonds. The tough, fibrous strands that he was wrapped were covered in a thin, sticky mucus that made his hands burn. Hiro ignored the sensation and tugging and his bonds. It seemed that the more he tugged at his bonds, the tougher they seemed to get.  
Hiro thought he hear a scraping noise and stopped moving again. The Aetherium rippled around him and he could feel the currents changing one of the plant’s tentacles rose up not far away from him and he could feel draining the Aetherium out of one of its victims. Even at a distance, the sensation made him feel nauseous. For a brief moment, he wanted to kill the pitcher plant, but he knew that was a bad idea. From what he had read, which wasn’t very much, as Aetheric pitcher plants were exceptionally rare, he remembered that the more they were attacked, the harder they were to kill. Even when they weren’t actively feeding, they were constantly drawing energy out of the Aetherium at a very low level. Only a Star Knight of the very highest caliber could fight and kill a Aetheric pitcher plant. Even then, it had only ever happen three times in the entire history of the order. The last time had been over a thousand years ago by Tragos the Star Crossed. He had been pulled out of Aetherspace by a pitcher plant in the Delta Pavonis system. It had established itself on a moon orbiting orbiting a gas giant in the star’s habitable zone. Exact what had happened after that would never be known, but it was assumed that Tragos had attempted to fight the pitcher plant that this had somehow triggered a massive release of Aetheric energy, which had consumed the entire system.   
Where the Delta Pavonis system had once existed, there now sat the Pavonian Rift, a huge swirling maelstrom of Aetheric energy, over a hundred AUs in diameter. It was so bright that it could be seen in daytime with the naked eye in star systems up to ten lightyears away. Hiro pushed the story out of his mind and refocused his attention on the moment at hand. He took a deep breath and opened himself up to the Aetherium again. He felt the wave of nausea return and suppressed it with several deep breaths. He reached outward with his senses listening for the faintest echo or the tiniest tremor. He was very still for a long time, listening carefully. When he didn’t hear or sense anything, Hiro pulled himself upright into something like a sitting position. He conjured the knife out of the Aetherium again and set about cutting away the last strands that were wrapped around his ankles. They fell free and Hiro pulled himself upright until he was full vertical. He wrapped his legs securely around the fibrous strand from which he had been suspended. It felt rough under his hands, like braided plasteel cable, except that it was covered in a thin film of slippery mucus.   
Hiro sensed a change in the Aetherium and opened himself up again. There was another long thin tentacle waving in the air behind him. It was a different tentacle than the one that had fed on him. Instead of a large fleshy pod, this one consisted of a tangle of gently waving feelers with what appeared to be a mouth surrounded by several circles of razor sharp teeth. HIro suddenly realized that he was holding his breath. He let it out very, very slowly. Either Hiro had been as quite as he thought, or the pitcher plant was much more sensitive to vibrations than he had anticipated. He wasn’t sure which one it was, but he couldn’t help but get a strong sense of foreboding from the tentacle with the mouth. He began to climb very slowly, placing one hand above the other, inching slowly up the slick, slippery tether.   
Hiro had climbed ten feet at most when he heard a sudden hissing noise. Something told him to jump and he did. Hiro threw himself into the void. He felt himself falling and conjured a line out of the Aetherium. He felt rather than heard the teeth snapping shut on empty space where his foot a had been half a second before hand. He gripped the line he had conjured extra tightly, but his hand was slick with mucus and he felt himself slipping. He stopped falling and suddenly swung sideways in a wide arc. He felt the line slipping through his hands again and quickly wrapped it around his knuckles. It tightened and bit deeply into his fingers as he reached the end of his arc and swung back in the other direction. Hiro opened himself to the Aetherium again. The tentacle with the mouth on the end was waving around in long sinuous arcs. Shit, thought Hiro, I was hoping that that thing couldn’t see. No sooner had this thought occurred to him, than Hiro realized that he was going to swing straight into it. He instinctively thrust his legs out and felt his feet connect with something hard like ferracrete. He pushed off and went swing back out into the void. The tentacle uttered a loud hiss from its mouth and lunged at where he had been just a second or two before. He felt the rush of wind as it passed and once again hears the teeth shut on empty air. Its echo in the Aetherium looked different in Hiro’s mind and he realized that it’s position had changed.  
It reared up to its full height and hissed loudly. I don’t think it likes to be hit, though Hiro. He swung out to the end of his arc again and began swinging back in the other direction. It lunged at him and missed, but only barely and he felt its hard, sinuous body go rushing past him. Damn, that was close, he thought. I have to find Bardu and get out the hell out here. Hiro reached out with his senses and opened himself to the Aetherium again. There was a large cluster of pods hanging from the opposite wall. He was almost close enough to reach them. He unwrapped his hand and let go of the line he had conjured. Hiro jumped, letting his momentum carry him forward. He slammed in the wall of pods with a hard thud that forcibly drove air from his lungs, but there was no time to catch his breath. Hiro wrapped his hands around the tough strands of the pod that he had collided with and hung on tight.   
It lunged at him again and Hiro moved just in time. He heard a wet crunch as the circle of razor sharp teeth sank through flesh and bone. He quickly scrambled up the wall without pausing to catch his breath. There was a catwalk about twenty feet above him. He could see it clearly in the Aetherium. It was only a little of his reach. He had almost made it when a ripple in the Aetherium suddenly made him stop. He reached out with his senses. There were two other tentacles rising to join the first one. The three of them swayed in unison. They writhed in long sinuous waves. The one on the right had a wickedly sharp barb on the end, like a stinger. The head of the the tentacle was swollen and pulsating. The space was suddenly filled with light. The other tentacle shone brightly in the Aetherium with what Hiro guessed bioluminescent patches. So that’s what that one does, he thought. No sooner had the thought occurred to him, then he heard a cough followed by a loud pfutt. Something told him to move and he scrambled upward again. The razor sharp barb buried itself in the pod that Hiro had been hanging from just a second or two before. A thin rivulet of poison trickled down the face of the pod, leaving a slightly smoking trail in its wake.


	6. Chapter 6

Hiro crawled over the edge of the wall and threw himself on to the catwalk just as he heard another cough followed by a loud pfut and a solid sounding thunk He chanced a glance over the edge of the catwalk and saw another dart sticking out of the pod where his foot had been a second or two earlier. A thin trickle poison left a smoking trail as before along with a steady stream of some black fluid that Hiro didn’t recognize. The tentacle were still swaying gently, searching for him. I don’t think they know where I am, he thought, but he didn’t wait to find out. Hiro got to his feet and start walking. He opened himself to the Aetherium again, searching for Bardu. He could see him clearly, still suspended in his pod. The tentacle with the large fleshy appendage that fed on Hiro was coiled below where Bardu hung. Hiro stretched himself out again. How the hell do I get over there, he thought. The pods hung from a series of I beams. If I can get up there, thought Hiro, I could climb down and cut him loose. He studied the the clutch of pods that hung from the steel beams, wondering how he was supposed to get up there. Hiro stretched out with his senses, searching the Aetherium for a possible clue to his problem.   
He spotted it almost at once. There was a ladder embedded in the ferracrete that led up to a catwalk, which was just out of Hiro’s field of view. He frowned to himself, the iron rungs sticking out of the ferracrete were entwined with tentacles. Hiro had no idea with they did. They appeared to be slightly slimy, as if they were covered in a thin film of mucus. They were pulsating slightly. Hiro reached out with his senses again. The three tentacles that had attacked him earlier were gone. He studied the ladder again, wondering if he could from the bottom to the top without having to touch them. The last thing I need is for those tentacles to come back, he thought. He began walking, following the catwalk as it wound its way around the edge of the space, hugging the ferracrete wall. Hiro had to stop several times to carefully step over tentacles in his path, but eventually he came with in reach of the ladder. He paused again, studying for a long time, noting exactly where the tangled snarl of tentacles and tendrils had left gaps and handholds.  
Hiro took a deep breath to steady himself and approached the ladder very, very slowly. He opened himself as fully as he could to the Aetherium. Hiro was attuned to every ripple in the Aetherium, every echo, the slightest breath of wind. He could feel his heart hammering rapidly in his chest and he took several deep breaths, invoking the Mak’Tak breathing chant. He felt his tension ease and his heart rate slow. He walked to the base of the ladder, took hold of the rungs and began to climb. The rungs slick with mucus and Hiro found it difficult to keep his grip. The tentacles wrapped around the ladder were covered with short bristly hairs. They twitched in his direction but otherwise didn’t react to his presence. As he climbed, Hiro felt as though he was being assaulted by intense waves of Aetheric energy. Twice he had to stop climbing and cling to the ladder because the psychic onslaught was making his brain fuzzy. It was as though there were ants crawling around on the inside of Hiro’s skull, and it suddenly occurred to him the tentacles that entwined themselves around the ladder were waiting for him to slip.   
The slimy mucus covering his hands made maintaining a strong on the ladder almost impossible. It was as if it had been designed to be as slippery as possible. Hiro took another deep breath and very carefully removed his right hand from the rung of the ladder in front of his eyes. As soon as he let go with his right hand, he felt his left hand starting to slip. He quickly put his right hand back on the rung above the one he ha just let go of and carefully placed his left hand on the rung above that. He slowly inched his way hand over hand, one rung at a time up the ladder. When he finally got to the top, Hiro threw himself onto the metal catwalk, and lay sprawled there for time, until the waves of Aetheric energy eased and he slowly go to his feet.  
Hiro opened himself to the Aetherium again, riding the ripples and currents as they swirled around him. He could clearly see where Bardu was still hanging amidst the clutch of pods, which were dangling from the underside of the steel girders. The ferracrete wall into which the girder was imbedded was riddled with cracks. Hiro thought that he might be able to use the fissures in the wall to climb across to the steel beam, but to get there he would have work his way around the outside edge of the catwalk. From there, Hiro would have to use the Aetherium. He estimated that there was an eight foot gap between the far end of the catwalk and the fissures in the wall. He should have no trouble covering that gap. Hiro took a deep breath, uttering the Mak’Tak breathing chant again, and swung his leg over the edge of the rail. After a second or two, he swung the other leg over, and he was standing balanced on the outside edge of the catwalk, the railing gripped firmly in his hands. He opened himself to the Aetherium and immediately wished he hadn’t. His mind was suddenly assaulted by successive waves of Aetheric energy and he had to close his mind again. He felt as though everything was spinning and he held on the railing very tightly.  
I must be close to the centre of the plant, Hiro thought after the spinning sensation subsided. It was the only reason he could think of that would explain why he kept feeling wave after wave of Aetheric energy. He slowly opened himself to the Aetherium again and stretched out his senses to their maximum. An almost blindingly bright beacon of Aetherium energy blossomed in Hiro’s mind. It was so bright that it was physical painful for Hiro to look at, even in his blindness. He instinctively squinted and shut his eyes. Everything around him was lit up as bright as daylight. He took a deep breath and tried to shut as many of the distractions as he could. The overpowering Aetheric light from radiating from the pitcher plant dimmed a little and Hiro was able to see better.  
He began to work his way along the outside edge of the catwalk. Hiro gripped the railing very tightly in his hands. He had to stop on several occasions and close his mind again. When the waves of buffeting energy subsided, he was able to keep going. It took Hiro half an hour to to work his way around to the outside edge of the catwalk to the place where he thought he could get to the crisscrossed maze of cracks that spread across the gap between the end of catwalk and the steel beam. Holding on to the catwalk railing with one hand, he reached out with the other. He found a large crack and jammed his hand into it. He skinned his knuckles and felt a thin trickle of blood running down the of his hand and on to his wrist. He ignored it. Hiro felt his hand close around what he though was a piece of rebar. He held it tightly and let go of the catwalk. He felt himself drop and swing freely. The broken ferracrete bit into his palm. He pulled his legs up under himself and pressed his feet flat against the wall. Hiro thrust his other hand into the crack and began to crab sideways along the wall.   
By the time he reached the other side, Hiro’s hands were cut and bleeding and his forearms were on fire from having to hold up his body weight. He carefully pulled one hand out of the crack and took hold of the edge of the steel beam. His hand immediately slid off. It was slick with blood. He opened himself to the Aetherium again and looked around, searching for a way to get on to the beam. A thin crack run up the wall like a vine. He unstuck one hand and then the other into the thin, vertical crack. He ignored the hot sensation of the blood flowing over his palms and kept climbing. It took ten minutes for Hiro to scale the ferracrete wall and his forearms were aching by the time he got the top. Hiro paused momentarily, chanting the Litany of Restoration. He felt energy returning to his body and the ache in his forearms subsided a little. He carefully pulled one hand out of the crack and put it on the steel beam. His hand twinged painfully as he wrapped it around the hard, shape edged piece of metal. His bloody hand slipped a little and he tightened his grip. His hand throbbed.   
When Hiro was sure that he was going to lose his grip, he let go with his other hand and swung his legs up and on to the beam. Hiro lay very still, his heart beating rapidly. He uttered the Chant of Serenity under his breath and after a couple of minutes, felt his heart rate slow. Hiro got to his feet. There was a yawning gulf on either side of him. The Aetheric Pitcher Plant seemed to be aware of him again. Hiro paused, opening himself, sensing the Aetherium. Something’s different, he thought. He tried to put his finger on what it was. He opened himself to the Aetherium again and he was surrounded by pulsating waves of energy. He felt himself wobbly slightly and he planted his feet firmly on the beam. He stood very still for several minutes. Everything feels wrong, he thought. He took a deep breath and it out very slowly. All his senses were totally attuned for anything out of the ordinary.  
Hiro wasn’t sure how long he had stood there for when he heard the rustling sound. He opened his mind wide to the Aetherium again, trying to determine what it was. It was followed by a wet noise and a sound like something ripping. Hiro felt the Aetherium rippling again and he heard what he thought was the scuttling of feet. He felt something crawling on his foot and he instinctively looked down, even though he couldn’t see. After a second or two, Hiro suddenly realized what it was. Oh shit! he thought. The Aetheric Pitcher Plant was breeding. An Aetheric Pitcher plant had only ever been observed reproducing in the wild once. The exact date of the event was not known with certainty, but it was thought to have been a least a thousand years ago.   
There were very few surviving records from that event, and most of what did survive existed only in fragments and what those fragments hinted was frightening. The Aetheric Pitcher Plant had laid waste to an entire continent. Everything that had lived on the southern continent of the third planet orbiting the star Gliese 710 had been subjected to so much aetheric energy that their molecular bonds had failed. The entire ecosystem had slowly melted into a mass of protoplasm, which had then flowed into the planet’s ocean. The mass of protoplasm had been less dense than water, and had spread across the surface of the planet’s ocean, blocking all the sunlight and collapsing the planet’s marine ecosystem, which had rendered the planet uninhabitable.  
Hiro pushed the thought aside, focusing his energy on Bardu. He reached out with his mind, riding the currents of the Aetherium. After a few minutes, Hiro found him. He was not far away and blazed brightly in the Aetherium. Hiro pushed aside all other thoughts and continued walked out on to the beam. He had to close his mind. The intense buffeting of the aetheric energy coming from the plant was making him dizzy. Hiro swallowed and kept walking. After about ten minutes, with the yawning gulf on either side of him, Hiro reached the clutch of pods that included Bardu’s. He knelt down and carefully lowered himself down over the edge of the I-beam. He winced as his hands throbbed with pain. They were covered with a crust of dried blood. Carefully letting go with one hand, Hiro reached down and took hold of the top of the fleshy fibrous line that the pod immediately below him was suspended from.   
He had just let go of the I-beam with his other hand when he felt several tentacles rising up from below. He felt the currents of the Aetherium being drawn towards them and he felt his grip weakening. He felt himself sliding downward and was suddenly aware of his feet dangling over empty space. He felt a fresh wave of dizziness wash over him and he instinctively tightened his grip on the tough, fibrous exterior of the pod, lest he lose his grip entirely. He waited for the dizziness to pass. Eventually the tentacles withdrew and the dizziness subsided. Hiro pulled himself back up to the top of the pod and clung to it, panting slightly. How long he clung to the pod, Hiro didn’t know. After awhile he felt the painful throbbing in his hands begin to subside and he opened himself to the currents of the Aetherium again. Bardu burned so brightly in the Aetherium that he was almost painful to look at.   
His pod seemed to be dangling from the bottom of the clutch. Hiro slowly began to slowly lower himself down the curved side of the pod. He lowered himself to where the pod curved out the most and stuck his foot into a fibrous knot. He gripped very tightly with his left hand and wrapped his right hand around the rough strands of the adjacent pod with his right. When he was sure that he had a solid grip, Hiro let go with his other hand and took hold of the adjacent pod. He loosened his remaining foot and stuck it a loop of fibre. He pause momentarily, opening himself to the Aetherium, listening carefully for any sounds and feeling the currents flowing through and around him. He could feel the tentacles writhing slow below him. The sensation made his skin crawl. He closed his mind again and began to carefully work his way around the outside of the clutch of pods. It was slow work. He on two occasions Hiro to had pause and press himself into a crack between to of the pod when the Aetheric Pitcher Plant shone a tentacle with a bioluminescent light in his direction. It’s guarding these pods, thought Hiro with a sudden flash of insight, but for what?  
He opened himself to the Aetherium again, but only a little. He felt the currents washing over him again, as before, and again as before he felt himself become nauseous. He swallowed hard, in and effort to keep down his rising stomach. There are too many currents, he thought, then the realization struck him with a sudden thrill of foreboding. He tried to focus his mind very intently on just one Aetherial eddy. It was extremely difficult. His head was pounding and he felt his grip weakening. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t isolate a single current. Every time he got close they slipped away. Yes, thought Hiro, this plant is definitely trying to breed. For half a second, he wondered about the possibility of leaving it alone. The asteroid that the Citadel was build on was well outside the even the nearest shipping lanes. It doesn’t even show up on official star charts, Hiro thought, it might to isolated too be a significant risk to the rest of the galaxy. However, almost as soon as the thought occurred to him, he pushed it aside.  
He didn’t know exactly how this Aetheric Pitcher Plant was breeding. The scant records avail suggested that no two plants used exactly the same reproduction process. This one seems to be utilizing the current of the Aetherium somehow, he thought. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew that being this close to a source of Aetheric energy this strong would eventually bring madness, and then death. There’s no other way, Hiro thought, the plant must be destroyed. The only way to do it would be to overload the Citadel’s reactor. That won’t be hard, thought Hiro, I just need to destroy the reactor’s safety interlocks and the entire tower will be sucked into a black hole. The Citadel derived its energy from an artificial quantum singularity. If the safety interlocks that regulated the reactor’s magnetic containment field were turned off, the singularity at the heart of the reactor would start to drift into the reactor walls. Contact with the reactor walls would result in the failure of the reactor vessel’s structural integrity, followed very shortly thereafter by a massive burst of gamma radiation followed immediately by large explosion. The trick is not to be around the reactor when everything goes off, thought Hiro. He pushed the thought aside. You have to get to the reactor first, he thought. One thing at a time.  
Hiro opened himself to the Aetherium again. The tentacles with the lights on the end had disappeared, or at the very least, Hiro couldn’t sense them any more. He climbed out from where he had wedged himself and continued working his way around until he thought he was close to Bardu’s pod. He began to lower himself down the curved side of the pod. He felt his feet dangling over empty air. If he lost his grip, he wold fall. Even if the fall didn’t kill him, which it almost certainly would, the plant’s slowly writhing tentacles would immediately finish him off.  
He spent the next several minutes working his way, hand over hand, across the underside of the dangling collection of pods. Eventually, Hiro found a gap that led up and into the middle of the pods. Ignoring the throbbing pain of his forearms, Hiro hauled himself up through the gap above his head. He opened himself to the Aetherium again and reached out with his senses. He was in a small void formed by several pods which hung at slightly different levels. He lay wedged into the tiny space for some time, letting his various aches and pains subside. His knees were almost in his face. Bardu was now very, very close by. He burned with an almost blinding brightness in Hiro’s mind. He closed down again and quietly uttered the Litany of the Senses, listening for the beating of the big Yondak’s three hearts. After a couple minutes he heard Bardu’s slow but steady triple heart beat. It was coming from the third pod on his right. He carefully turned himself around. In the cramped space, it took several minutes, but eventually he was facing Bardu’s pod. As he reached across the cramped space, a knife coalesced in his hand. He reached across the cramped space and began to cut.


	7. Chapter 7

The Aetheric knife cut easily through the thought outer material of Bardu’s pod. Hiro returned the knife to the Aetherium and pulled apart the flaps. He heard a strangled wheezing gasp from within as Bardu took in a shuddering breath. Hiro reached into the pod’s interior, feeling around for something to grab onto. The big Yondak flinched and tried swat Hiro’s hand away. Hiro dodged the blow and kept searching some part of Bardu to grab on to. Eventually the Star Knight’s hand close over the collar of Bardu prison jumpsuit. Hiro pulled and Bardu slid out of the pod. Hiro made a disgusted face. Bardu had been suspended in some sort of fluid. It was slightly viscous and felt slimy to the touch. Hiro was now covered in it. Bardu flopped limply onto Hiro’s chest. He gagged again, and Hiro realized that there was something in Bardu’s mouth. He pulled out a long tube, covered in a thick layer of mucus. Bardu spluttered wet and worked his jaw back and forth several times. “Hiro?” he asked hoarsely, “what happened? How long have we been down here?”   
“I’m not sure,” replied Hiro. “Can you climb? We need to get out of here.”  
“I’m not sure,” replied Bardu, “but I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”  
Hiro didn’t say anything. Instead he opened himself to the Aetherium, probing its various currents and eddies, searching for a way out of their current predicament. Bardu was heavy and the sooner Hiro could get him off of his abdomen, the better.   
“I think I found a way out,” said Bardu.  
Hiro started slightly and slipped a little. He tightened his grip on the rough fibres of the pod behind his head. “Where is it?” asked Hiro, “and did you do that?”  
“There’s a gap above me and to the right,” he replied, “I can see into the ultraviolet. It’s practically impossible to miss in that part of the spectrum.”  
I must have forgotten that Yondaks can that, Hiro thought bemusedly to himself. “OK,” he said out loud, “let’s get out of here.”  
“Right,” replied Bardu. He blinked and a pair of nictitating membranes slid into place over his eyeballs again. The confined space fluoresced into a kaleidoscope of blues and purples. Just above Bardu’s head and slightly to the right was a thin blue line. He carefully probed it with his hands. Bardu pulled on it and it opened a little wider. Hiro could sense the change in the currents in the Aetherium as Bardu pulled open the narrow aperture. At the same Hiro could feel a wet a fetid smelling draft on his face as stale air blew out. Hiro felt a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He pushed the sensation aside. There was no other way out of their predicament. Hiro suddenly felt something sharp and heavy being driven into his chest. He felt the air being driven out of his lungs and he gasped.   
“Watch where you put your elbows,” Hiro wheezed.  
Bardu paused. The Yondak’s elbow drove deeper into the Star Knight’s chest. “Sorry,” replied Bardu, “but there’s not a lot of room.” He pulled the fetid smelling opening a little wider and stuck his head into the breach. It was lit with a faint green bioluminescent light. The walls pulsated slightly. Bardu continued wriggling his way into the opening. At the same time, Hiro began contorting himself into position to follow Bardu into the opening. It was difficult work and took several minutes, but eventually the only part of Bardu that Hiro could see was the lower part of his legs, which were still dangling out of the opening. Bardu kicked his feet several times as he crawled the rest of the way into the tube.   
Hiro kept Bardu’s feet fixed in his mind. He hadn’t been able to see the opening that Bardu had found in the Aetherium, and it made him wonder if the Aetheric pitcher plant had evolved a way to shield parts of itself from the Aetherium. For a moment Hiro searched his memory, trying to remember if there was a written record of an Aetheric pitcher plant exhibiting a similar behaviour. He couldn’t remember, but there was so little information on the Aetheric pitcher plant that he reasoned that that didn’t mean anything.  
Bardu’s feet disappeared and Hiro waited for a minute or two before thrusting his head into the opening. The wet and fetid smell was strong in his nostrils and he had to resist the urge to gag. “I don’t suppose you can see where thing leads to?” he called out to Bardu.  
“No,” replied Bardu. He paused, “wait can’t you sense where we are?”  
“No,” Hiro called back. “I think this thing has learned how to block the Aetherium.”  
“Ummmmm…….OK…...,” said Bardu, “is that normal for what ever this?”  
“Honestly, I have no idea,” replied Hiro.  
“Wonderful,” replied Bardu. “So what do we do know?”  
“Climb,” Hiro answered, “and hopefully we’ll be able to a way out of here.”

Hiro and Bardu climbed for what seemed like a long time. Hiro wasn’t sure exactly how long it took them to escape from the slimy and fetid smelling tube, but eventually they emerged from their wet confines into a narrow duracrete tunnel. It was only just wider than Bardu’s shoulders and was too short to stand up it. Eventually they came to a rusted metal ladder set in a recess in the tunnel wall. They climbed up it, pushed open the rusted grate at the top and climbed out. Hiro stretched and various parts of his body protested loudly. He was covered in dirt, slime and sweat. His hands were thickly caked with dried blood, his knees were raw and his shoulders ached. He felt exhausted.   
Hiro and Bardu looked around. They were in another empty service tunnel. Ancient looking lights hung from the bare ceiling and duct work, pipes and cabling ran along the walls in both directions. “Any idea where we are?” asked Bardu.  
Hiro shook his head. This didn’t look like anything that he remembered from what he had been able to glean from his brief look at the plans for the Citadel. “We need to find a data terminal,” he said.  
Bardu paused. “Is that good idea?” he asked. “I mean it’s been a long time since we encountered any guards. Why tip them off?”  
Hiro considered that for a moment. It was a good point. Even if any of the Citadel’s security force had been following them, they would have run into the Aetheric pitcher plant likely assumed that Hiro and Bardu had come to an unpleasant end. An unauthorized breach of the Citadel’s computer network would set off alarm bells in the security centre and the guards would be sent to investigate. Then we’d be back to square one, thought Hiro. At the same moment, another thought occurred to him. You don’t have a choice, he thought, you need to find the Citadel’s reactor so you can blow it up. Out loud, he said, “no,” he said loud, “we need to find a data terminal.”  
They started walking. Aside from the piping running on either side up and down the corridor, and the utilitarian lighting overhead, the corridor was empty. Hiro wasn’t sure how long they walked for, but eventually they came to a large rectangular hatch set flush with the duracrete wall. A biometric scanner was set in the wall next to the hatch. Hiro studied it cautiously.  
“Any idea where it leads?” asked Bardu. The only clue as to the hatch’s identity or purpose was a sign that said:

AEG-627  
TANGO SIGMA  
SECTOR 573

Hiro regarded the sign for a moment and shrugged. “It leads to sector 573 apparently,” he replied.  
“How do we know we’re not sector 573?” asked Bardu. “Maybe it leads to sector 572.”  
“There’s only one way to find out,” replied Hiro. He knelt down and run his hands around the edges of the biometric scanner’s housing. He dug his finger nails under the metallic edge and after a minute or two was able to work the scanner plate loose. It hinged forward and he let it fall flat. He examined the interior of the biometric scanner and frowned. He had anticipated a tangle of wires and microchips. Instead, a collection of isolinear datarods glowed with faint blue and purple light. Hiro frowned.  
Bardu peered over his shoulder. “That doesn’t look like the wall panel from the elevator shaft,” he said.  
Hiro shook his head. “That because it isn’t,” he replied. “This is a lot more sophisticated.”  
“I don’t understand,” said Bardu, “what is this?”  
“It looks like an isolinear datanet,” replied Hiro.  
“OK,” replied Bardu slowly, “assume for a second that I don’t know what that.”  
Hiro frowned at the bundle of datarods again. “It’s like an entire computer network in a really small package.” Hiro quickly counted the number of datarods plugged into the back of the scanner. He estimated that there were about twenty in all. Each one was like a computer in miniature and could replicate most of functions of a standard computer terminal, but they were difficult and expensive to make. What could the ISD possibly need twenty of down here for, he thought, where ever here is. He studied the collection of datarods again. They were pulsing slightly. Pulsing? Wait, thought Hiro, they’re pulsing. He stared at them for a long time without speaking. Yes, he thought, there’s a pattern. The datarods were pulsing with light in a regular pattern. He studied the gently pulsating blue and purple light for awhile longer, as if hoping they would revealing something else. He looked at the hatch again. Somebody put this hatch here, he thought, and programmed these datarods, for what?   
Hiro reached out with his mind, letting his consciousness ride the currents and eddies of the Aetherium. He tried to expand his consciousness beyond the hatch. He shivered involuntary. Something cold had touched his mind. It felt old and malevolent. For a moment or two, he wonder if they should move on and try to find another way out of this tunnel, but something he couldn’t put his finger on told him to stay and try to open the hatch. He turned his attention back to the datarods. They looked different in the Aetherium, he noticed. They alternated blue and purple about once five seconds. So that’s what I have to do, he thought, the only question is how to do it?   
Hiro closed his mind again and everything revert back to the mundane. The individual datarods were alternately pulsing blue and purple. He opened his mind again and before and they glowed solidly again. Hiro withdrew his consciousness back into himself and focused his attention on the datarods.   
“So what’s the hold up?” asked Bardu. His voice seemed overly loud in Hiro’s ears, which made him start slightly.  
“I think these datarods are like a combination lock,” he said. “Somebody’s gone through a lot of effort to hide something down here.”  
Bardu thought for a second or two, absorbing this information. “OK,” he replied slowly, “what does that mean exactly?”  
Hiro shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure,” he replied.   
The big Yondak eyed the hatch with a sudden uneasy feeling. “So how long will this take?” he asked.  
Hiro shook his head, “honestly, I don’t know,” he said. He nodded at the datarods. “Depends on how complicated the lock is.” He shrugged. “You might as well make yourself comfortable. This could take awhile.”  
Bardu settled himself down on the floor of the service tunnel. He folded his muscular arms across his chest. Hiro bent over the guts of the biometric scanner, the end of his nose almost touching the top of the datarods. He took hold of the first datarod in the row closest to him and carefully extracted it from its dataport. He held very still for a moment or two, as if waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he took hold of the datarod next to the one he held in his hand and pulled it out. So far so good, Hiro thought. He swapped the two datarods and put them back in the tray with the others. The panel emitted an audible beep and the two datarods turned blue. Hmmmmm, thought Hiro, he realized that he should have anticipated that and he hadn’t. There might be more levels to this lock than I expected. Hiro pulled another datarod of its socket, when nothing happened again, he pull out a fourth one. He swapped them and plugged them back into each other’s respective ports. This time nothing happened. Hiro frowned slightly. He reached out into the Aetherium, uncertain as whether or not nothing happening was in this instance good or bad. He wouldn’t put it past the ISD to have booby trapped the door in some fashion. The two datarods remained unchanged. Hiro put them back in their original positions and tried two others. He switched them and the panel beeped again. As with the first two they glowed blue and the panel beeped again. Hiro paused, letting his mind ride the energy currents flowing through the fibre optic conduits that connected the datarods to the Citadel’s power grid. The fibre optic cables glowed brightly in the Aetherium. He followed the currents for some distance until he got to an energy node. Well, so much for that he thought.   
Hiro had hoped that there might be way to be a way to bypass with biometric scanner without having to reprogram the datarods. If he had been able to access the energy node that powered the scanner, by-passing the datarods would have been a snap. Whoever set this up really knew what they were doing, Hiro thought. He started to think, I wonder what’s in there, but pushed the thought aside. He didn’t need the distraction. Hiro turned his attention back to the datarods. He selected another datarod and pulled out of its port. The panel beeped and a datarod in the opposite corner turned blue. Well that was unexpected, he thought. He guessed that the datarods were linked randomly to each other. That’ll make things a lot harder, he thought. He wasn’t sure how many levels there were to this lock, but he was starting guess that the answer was more rather than fewer.  
Hiro sank his consciousness into the Aetherium again. The last datarod to light up was glowing steadily. Several others immediately adjacency to it were blinking off and on, at what seemed to be random intervals. Hiro studied them for what seemed like a long while, trying to determine which one to pull. He wasn’t sure which one to pull and it occurred to him that the wrong one were probably all Bobby trapped. So, pull the right one and keep going, he thought, or pull the wrong one and…..Hiro’s thoughts trailed off. He decided that he didn’t want to think about what “and” meant beyond something messy. He studied the randomly flashing datarods for awhile longer. I guess I’m just going to have to pull one and seen what happens, he thought. He took hold of the solidly glowing datarod. Nothing happed. Hiro took a deep breath and took hold of another one at random. On three, thought Hiro.  
One.  
Two.  
Three.  
He started to pull the two datarods out of their sockets. He had moved them not even a millimeter, when the panel uttered a harsh tone. Hiro stopped and put them both back. Hmmmmm, he thought, I guess that was the wrong one after all. He studied the tray of datarods again. The one had first activated still glowed steadily. So that one is the right one, he thought, it must have been the other one that was wrong. He opened himself to the Aetherium again, hoping he might glean some clue that he had missed the first time. The datarods continued blinking on and off. Hiro focused his mind intently on them, trying to discern a pattern. He muttered the Chant of Concentration and the Litany of Remembrance under his breath. Everything seemed to slow. He uttered the Chant of Concentration again, and then the Chant of Perception. Hiro thought he could see the pattern now. It’s a fractal encryption pattern, he thought. Waves of light swirled in a spiral pattern around the steadily glowing datarod in the middle. One other datarod appeared to be glowing at ten second intervals. He took hold of the two datarods and counted to ten. He pulled them out of their sockets at the same time and switched their positions. The panel gave another affirmative beep and the two datarods glowed solidly. OK, thought Hiro, so that’s two more.


End file.
